Spring had passed like a blur during the captain's time in the capital. The selection and training of new knights had taken up any spare time the knight had been afforded, leaving very little for the task of running a large farmstead and distant village. Word from Mayce was slow and seldom required more action than the odd reply in writing. Still, Malcolm itched to return to the valley to help oversee the expansion of the village. The king instead kept him busy, asking favours he could only trust his son in law to carry out. Finally, though, the season was drawing to a close, leaving just enough downtime to travel to his nearby cottage on the outskirts of Andaris, closer to the ports.

The air beyond the city walls was crisp and mist still lingered about the cottage, the grass wet with morning dew. Malcolm climbed down from his horse and removed the animal's tack before releasing her into the field. He closed the gate and walked on down the lane towards the cottage with the saddle under his arm and the reins hanging from his fist. There he was greeted by one of the farmhands, who stood pulling her boots on, ready to get to work. “Good morning m’lord,” she greeted him.

“Grace.” Malcolm smiled. “Good morning.”

“Do you plan to help harvest the potatoes today?” Grace asked.

“Indeed, I’ve traveled here to make sure all three shipments are made on time.”

“Will we be loading the crates bound for Nejem first then?”

“I think that would be wise,” Malcolm said. “The ship will be leaving the port by sun down. Let’s try and get the wagons loaded up before midday. Where is the rest of the team?”

“Already in the far paddocks, turning the crops over to start loading up.”

“Good thinking,” Malcolm said, “that way we can work closer and closer to base.

He put the horse tack away in the barn and pulled on a pair of worn leather gloves he used often while out in the garden. Just as Grace had said, the rest of the workers were out in the field with a lot of the soil already turned over, the new season potatoes sitting exposed and dotted across the fields all the way to the boundary. Malcolm got to work with haste, carrying two crates to the end of one of the rows of earth to start loading up from the far end. Once a crate was loaded, it took two men to carry it over to the wagon and stack it securely on the back. Despite the back-breaking work, it was a relaxing, repetitive task that allowed the man to clear his mind, focusing only on collecting the next spud and then the next, until the row was done.

By lunch they had four wagon loads ready to go and went to the field to collect the horses to get the cargo off to the ports. Malcolm had promised the capital sixty percent of his yield, with the remaining forty split evenly between Nejem, which he had sold for a healthy profit, and Mayce, enough to feed the village for the following winter, if cured and stored right. The skins would grow hard and waxy on the journey to Nejem, making them perfect for the marketplace there.